Dr Singh arrived in Beijing today from Tokyo after winding up his three-day visit to Japan during which he had discussed the global financial turbulence with his counterpart Taro Aso, besides holding a regular annual summit-level meeting with him.

At a bilateral meeting yesterday, both the leaders spent considerable time discussing the global economic turmoil. Both of them agreed that there must be some kind of Asian response to the crisis. "When to do this and how to do this will take time to evolve," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said.

The main engagement of Dr Singh in Beijing is his participation in ASEM, the first at the summit level after India joined the grouping of 45 countries, which includes Pakistan.

India, along with Pakistan and Mongolia, Bulgaria and Romania, are participating in the biennial summit level meeting of ASEM for the first time.

Though the theme of the seventh ASEM in Beijing on October 24 is "Vision and Action towards win-win solution," the international financial situation which shows the prospect of a prolonged recession in industrialised countries is likely to be high on the agenda of the meeting.

"This meeting is set against a special global condition in the areas of economy, energy, climate change and food security," External Affairs Ministry sources said, while adding that the summit was expected to achieve more consensus on these issues.

Sources said India's association with ASEM would help the country in many ways as 50 per cent of India's trade is with ASEM countries.

The population of the ASEM countries constituted 50 per cent of the total world population.

External Affairs Ministry is not yet sure if there will be a meeting between Dr Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani on the sidelines of ASEM.

Sources said according to the confirmed programme, Dr Singh would meet only with the President of Mongolia Nambaryn Enkhbayar and Prime Ministers of Italy and Vietnam, Silvio Berlusconi and Nguyen Tan Dung respectively,tomorrow.

He would attend a dinner being hosted by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on the same day.

Dr Singh would have a breakfast meeting with Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and a meeting later with the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov before leaving for New Delhi in the evening of October 25.